Early budget shows difficulty Quakertown faces

School district would need to raise taxes to maintain programs and staffing.

January 06, 2012|By Melinda Rizzo, Special to The Morning Call

Quakertown Community School Board reviewed an early 2012-13 budget that would require a 3 percent tax hike to maintain district programs and staffing.

The $93.6 million budget calls for raising taxes by 4.23 mills to 144.48 mills. That means a property owner with the district's average assessment of $26,304, would pay about $3,801 — about $112 more — in property taxes. A mill is worth $1 for every $1,000 of a property's assessed value.

"This is a status quo budget. There are no new initiatives, no new programs, and no new spending," Superintendent Lisa Andrejko told directors on Thursday.

Directors will be asked to vote on a preliminary budget on Jan. 24, but Andrejko said the spending plan would not be set in stone.

"You still have plenty of time to work on this budget before the final approval in June," she said.

Andrejko said the purpose of the preliminary budget was to alert the state Department of Education that the district may seek a referendum to raise taxes higher than allowed.

The state has set a 1.7 percent cap for Quakertown, but the district is eligible to seek an exception to cover rising pension costs. Such an exception would allow the district to bump taxes by 3.9 percent.

"There is no reason for us to go that high," business administrator Robert Riegel said.

School board President Bob Smith said he believed the final tax hike would be closer to 1.7 percent. "I think the final budget will look much different than this," he said.

Andrejko said the district is facing rising costs for employee contracts, health benefits, transportation and utilities.

"So even if you add nothing new in, which we have not, you still have a higher budget than you had the previous year," Andrejko said.

Andrejko said cost-saving measures used last year, like shuttering Haycock Elementary School and increasing class sizes at the remaining elementary schools, are no longer options.

"You just don't have those savings this year, and we don't' want to bring our lower grade class size into the mid-30s," Andrejko said.

While salaries will only rise by 1 percent, higher health insurance costs will amount to about $1.25 million more, Andrejko said.

"Quakertown Borough just announced a big electric-rate increase, and while we are in a buying consortium, we are still the largest user of electricity in the borough. Our rates are going to go up," Andrejko said.

And while parents have complained about early starting times at the district's two middle schools, Andrejko said higher transportation costs would be tied to changing the start times. "We don't have $900,000 built into this budget to add bus runs to the middle schools," Andrejko said.